His face was exotic, in the way that people can be when some ancestor didn’t come from Northern or Southern Europe. The straight black hair, the ever-so-slight uptilt to the edge of his eyes made me bet he’d come from somewhere much farther east.
I’d argued that I didn’t need or want guards, but just as I’d made the call about Primo and Lisandro, so Jean-Claude had given his orders about this before he got carried away on stage. I was to go nowhere without someone with me. He wasn’t sure the Dragon was done with us for the night, and it would be a shame if something went horribly wrong. What he hadn’t told the security detail, vampire or otherwise, was about what had happened earlier in my office. That had had nothing to do with the Dragon and everything to do with my own metaphysical shit. Well, mine, and Jean-Claude’s.
Jean-Claude had even left a list of people he thought were appropriate to the job. Byron had not been on the list, nor had Clay.
It had been a damn short list, actually, basically Requiem and Graham.
The last thing I wanted to do was be trapped in a car with Requiem, but I didn’t have time to argue. I’d gone from having plenty of time, to having to call my clients and tell them to hold fast in the cemetery, I really was on my way.
I was wearing Byron’s leather jacket to take the place of my bloodied suit jacket. His was the only one that came close to fitting me and not making me look like I was wearing the upper half of a gorilla. It smelled faintly of his cologne.
Buzz’s eyes left me and went to the audience. The man who had been arguing with his date was still standing, but now so was the woman, and she was starting to make a scene. “Sorry, gotta catch that.”
“Be my guest,” I said.
Nathaniel seemed to appear from nowhere. He escorted me toward the outer door. He was smiling and seemed terribly at ease, more so than I’d seen him in a long time, maybe ever. It seemed an odd night for him to be happy. “You promised to get back in time to see some of my act,” he said, smiling.
“I’ve got two clients stuck in cemeteries,” I said.
He gave me the look that was half-pout and half-he-knew-he’d-already-won-the-argument. “You promised.”
“Can’t we just fuck at home later?” I asked.
He gave me a frown. “I’ll be furry, you don’t do furry.”
I had an idea, an awful idea. “I promised to mark your neck tonight. Oh, no, you so are not planning on me doing it in front of an audience?”
He smiled, and there was something in that smile that I hadn’t seen before. Some hint of confidence, of security that hadn’t been there before. He’d watched me have sex with two near strangers, and suddenly he felt more secure. Go figure.
“You little exhibitionist, you,” I said, “you like the idea of me marking you for the first time in front of all these people.”
He gave an aw-gee-shucks shrug, which was all act, because his eyes were bright with the answer. “I like a lot of things, Anita.”
I tried to frown at him, but couldn’t keep it up. “You got me to promise I’d mark you, and now you’re taking advantage of it.”
“You’re running late,” he said, “clients waiting in the cemetery.”
He looked solemn except for the glint of humor in his eyes, which spoiled the effect.
I shook my head, smiling. “I’ve got to go.”
“I know,” he said.
“Would it ruin the illusion if I kissed you good-bye?”
“I’ll risk it,” he said.
I kissed him. It was chaste, a touch of lips, a little pressure, barely any body language. I drew back with a suspicious look on my face. It made him laugh and push me toward the door. “You’re late, remember.”
I went, but I went out into the October dark even more certain that I knew absolutely nothing about men. Alright, to be fair, that I knew absolutely nothing about the men in my life. I glanced back to see Jean-Claude on stage with another woman, kissing her as if he were trying to find her tonsils without his hands. Most people looked disturbing or awkward when they kissed that deep. He didn’t. He made it all seem suave, erotic, and perfect. I realized I’d kissed Nathaniel good-bye, but not Jean-Claude. Didn’t want to interrupt, but didn’t want him to feel left out, either. I blew him a kiss as his arms emptied of the woman. He returned the gesture with one pale hand.
The lower half of his face was smeared bright crimson with lipstick.
It didn’t really look like blood, not if you’d seen enough of the real deal, but it was still a less than comforting image to take away into the night. One of the other men in my life was smiling at the door, looking forward to having me do foreplay on him in front of an audience. Sometimes the parts of my life that are weirdest to me aren’t the parts dealing with vampires and werewolves and zombies.
Even vampire politics didn’t confuse me as much as my own love life.
39
We were on Gravois, trapped between an endless line of storefronts that had seen better days. The entire area was doing that slow slide into not being a good area to be in after dark. It wasn’t quite a danger zone, but if nothing saved it, in a couple of years it would be. The Bevo Mill restaurant, an honest-to-God windmill, loomed like a ship in a sea of lesser buildings and harder times. The Bevo Mill still served great German food. The slowly turning windmill was just ahead, and suddenly we were driving under the stone overpass blocks past the mill. I didn’t remember passing any of it. That wasn’t good.
I was missing things, like my attention was going in and out. Not good at all, since I was driving. Graham squeaked a second time, you know, that sharp intake of breath that comes out when you’re trying to swallow the sound.
I glanced at him. “What? What is your problem?”
“You’ve almost hit two cars,” he said in a strangled voice.
“No I haven’t.”
“Yes,” Requiem said from the back, “yes you have.”
There was a white car in front of me, like magic, it just appeared. I slammed on the brakes, and Graham squeaked again. My pulse was thudding in my throat. I hadn’t seen that car. I signaled that I was turning right. Right meant I didn’t have to cross any lanes of traffic. The suddenly appearing white car had scared me.
I eased us into Grasso Plaza, which held the Affton Post Office, a Save-A-Lot, and a lot of empty storefronts. This whole area along Gravois seemed tired, as if it had given its best and its best hadn’t been good enough. Or maybe it was projecting. I cut the engine, and we sat in silence for a minute.
“Are you well?” Requiem asked, his voice was very quiet and deep like he was talking from inside a well.
I actually turned around and looked at him, and even turning around seemed to be slower, as if I wasn’t moving at the same speed as the rest of the world.
Requiem was just sitting in the backseat, with his hands clasped in his lap. He wasn’t far away, or doing anything odd. He was sitting, very still, as if he didn’t want to attract attention to himself.
“What did you say?” My voice seemed hollow, too, as if I had an echo in my head.
“Are you well?” he said, slowly, distinctly, and as I stared at his lips, watching them move; the sound and the movement seemed just a little out of sync.
I had to think about it as if it were a much harder question than it should have been. “No,” I said, finally. “No, I don’t think I am.”
“What’s wrong?” Graham asked.
What was wrong? Good question. Trouble is, I wasn’t sure I had a good answer. What was wrong? I was having something close to a shock reaction, why? Had I lost more blood than I knew? Maybe. Maybe not.
I was cold, and I huddled in the borrowed jacket, burying my face in the collar. Byron’s cologne, the scent of him, was there, and I jerked back from it, because the smell of his skin in the leather brought it all back. Scent brings memory stronger than any other sense, and I was suddenly drowning in the feel of Byron’s body, the look of his face as he gazed down at me, the weight of him, the sight of him going in and out of my body.